Above in the thread it was discussed the possibility -very likely given Portuguese did the same at the beginning- that Musa expedition followed the coastal line, down south or up north. If so, perhaps the Musa fleet ended in Madagascar!

"He who attempts to count the stars, not even knowing how to count the knots of the 'quipus'(counting string), ought to be held in derision."

Above in the thread it was discussed the possibility -very likely given Portuguese did the same at the beginning- that Musa expedition followed the coastal line, down south or up north. If so, perhaps the Musa fleet ended in Madagascar!

In the treatise about him it is said that the first ships sailed out in the ocean westward where they ended up in some current and sunk. After that Abubakari II followed the same way and noone has heard from him afterwards. Most probably he sunk in some storm or current.

The Norse certainly kept slaves, whether they were the Skaerlings (indigenous peoples of Greenland and the Americas) is something more debatable.

Quite. We have a number of accounts about the Norse and their encounters with natives. First there are two sagas, the Greenlander Sagas and another (the name eludes me at the moment). Neither mention any slaves being taken. Second we have some accounts of the Norse colonies told by Greenland Inuit, and they don't mention anything like it either.

Note, also, that the native groups the Norse encountered made poor slaves as well. Later Europeans never tried to enslave the Micmac, the Beothuk, or the Inuit. They brought African slaves instead. I believe some Micmac and at least one Beothuk girl were captured and brought to Europe (not as slaves but as exhibits), but all died quickly thereafter.

Question? Anybody has PDFs about the Greenlander sagas that have relation with the conquest of Greenland and the Americas. Hopefully billingual Greenlander-English.

With respect to the second point, the enslavement of Amerindians and shipping to Europe, there is a misconception there. There were many Amerindians shipped to Europe as slaves. Not in the same scale than the African slave though, but perhaps several hundred thousands ended there. Most of them in Spain, but also in Britain.

Now, not long ago, Amerindian DNA was discovered in White Britains. The problem with Amerindian DNA is that got confussed with Central Asian, which exist in important percentages in Europeans.

I am not talking about mixed people or individuals that looked "oriental", but persons that looked perfectly nordics.

It is false that all Amerindians died quickly in contact with Europeans; perhaps one in four in the worst case, but the other three assimilated.

Even more, it is know that many Amerindians got to Europe as free citizens. The daughter of Pizarro, for instance, left a dinasty and lot of descendence among spaniards. Tupac Amaru II left descendency in Europe and even in Poland! etc.,

DNA testing has uncovered British descendents of Native Americans brought to the UK centuries ago as slaves, translators or tribal representatives.

Genetic analysis turned up two white British women with a DNA signature characteristic of American Indians.

An Oxford scientist said it was extremely unusual to find these DNA lineages in Britons with no previous knowledge of Native American ancestry.

Indigenous Americans were brought over to the UK as early as the 1500s.

It rocked me completely. It made think: who am I?

Doreen Isherwood

Many were brought over as curiosities; but others travelled here in delegations during the 18th Century to petition the British imperial government over trade or protection from other tribes.

Experts say it is probable that some stayed in Britain and married into local communities.

Doreen Isherwood, 64, from Putney, and Anne Hall, 53, of Huddersfield, only found out about their New World heritage after paying for commercial DNA ancestry tests.

Mrs Isherwood told BBC News: "I was expecting the results to say I belonged to one of the common European tribes, but when I got them back, my first thought was that they were a mistake.

"It rocked me completely. It made think: who am I?"

Ancestral home

The chartered physiotherapist studied for a degree at the University of North Carolina, but had no idea she possessed Native American ancestors. She said she came from a long line of Lancashire cotton weavers.

Raleigh brought Indians from the Jamestown area to England

Mrs Isherwood added that she was "immensely proud" of her newfound heritage, which has renewed a long-standing interest in Native American culture.

Anne Hall, who works as a private educational tutor, commented: "I was thrilled to bits. It was a very pleasant surprise. To have Native American blood is very exotic."

She said she now aimed to investigate her family history in an attempt to track down the source of her rare genetic lineage.

Mrs Isherwood says her American antecedent must have arrived in Britain in the 18th or 17th Centuries. She has traced her maternal ancestors back to 1798 and has found no sign of New World progenitors.

Maternal clans

The tests taken by both women were based on analysis of DNA inside the "powerhouses" of our cells: the mitochondria.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is passed down from mother to daughter more or less unchanged; but changes, or mutations, accumulate in the DNA sequence over successive generations.

Pocahontas was the daughter of a Native American chief

Scientists can use these changes to classify mtDNAs into broad types (called haplogroups) which, to some extent, reflect a person's geographical origin.

Mrs Isherwood and Mrs Hall possessed haplogroups characteristic of the indigenous people of the Americas, which are referred to as A and C.

"It's very unusual. Most of the people we test belong to one of the European maternal clans," said Professor Bryan Sykes, whose company Oxford Ancestors carried out the tests for Doreen and Anne.

Professor Sykes, also a professor of human genetics at the University of Oxford, said: "There are matches between [Doreen and Anne] and particular Native American tribes, but that doesn't necessarily mean those are the tribes their ancestors came from."

Trickle of immigrants

This month marks the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, the first permanent English-speaking settlement in North America.

Alden Vaughan, a professor emeritus at Columbia University, in New York, has written a book on American Indians in Britain. He said indigenous peoples from the New World began arriving in Britain as early as the sixteenth century.

"It started earlier than Jamestown. A number were brought over through the 1500s, mainly as curiosities," he told BBC News. Others were taken to Britain to learn English and go back to the colonies as translators.

"Sir Walter Raleigh brought back several individuals from the Jamestown area and from the Orinoco valley. Pocahontas went to England in 1616 and died there the next year.

"She was accompanied by several of her tribal associates. Some of them stayed in England for several years. I don't know of any marriages or even relationships between those women and Englishmen, but it is certainly possible.

"Later in the 17th Century, Native American slaves were brought over. I don't know much about them, because all the evidence I have are ads in London newspapers for runaway bond-servants, described as being Indians."

Edited by pinguin - 24-May-2009 at 14:12

"He who attempts to count the stars, not even knowing how to count the knots of the 'quipus'(counting string), ought to be held in derision."

Pocahontas married John Rolfe, who returned to England (with Pocahontas and a child). John Rolfe was the colonist who introduced Tobacco into Virginia with seeds from the Caribbean. The Native Americans knew and used tobacco, but apparently Rolfe's strain was considered a superior product. Again, I note that they are tracing ancestry through mtDNA. In other words, one of these ladies maternal ancestors within the past 400 years was an Indian. How about the rest?

Back in the 1970s Russell Means (of the AIM) was on a talk show with some British "Dame". (I believe it was the "Today" show) In any event, Dame what's her name mentioned to Means that she was descended from Pocahontas, and could therefore claim Indian blood for herself. True enough, but sooner or later we can all claim African blood back to Lucy, if mtDNA is the means by which we make such claims.

Oddly, the only pictures I've seen is some where she wears English clothes and pretty much looks like an English woman. In this picture here, she clearly does look Native American, despite her English dress. It's a very naturalistic picture compared to the other ones, and the painter must have had some idea about how Native Americans look!

So, either it is based on a generic (but authentic) model, or it was based on her real looks.

This Sedgeford portrait of Pocahontas and her son, Thomas Rolfe, carefully preserved through the centuries, although its travels and whereabouts have been been shrouded in mystery. Presently at Kings Lynn Museum.

It is believed the bereaved John Rolfe brought this portrait with him from England to his home here on the edge of the wilderness. The picture may have hung on the wall of one of Virginia's stately Colonial mansions and been taken back to england at some time. When reaching adulthood, Thomas Rolfe came to Virginia and assumed his fathers lands and possessions. He may have shipped the painting back to England, possibly to the Heacham Hall estate, which had been in the Rolfe family hundreds of years before John was born. It is known that the painting was sold at about the turn of the present century, the canvas was removed to Sedgeford, another Rolfe property. That the painting was carefully preserved proves, however, that its value to the Rolfe ancestors."

Yes, the coloured one looks like an old retouched and handcoloured photo or some kind of print of an original. Maybe it`s painted but still a not so detailed copy. The B & W actually looks more like a genuine copy or representation of an original.

One can see that many details are rather different in the two pictures.

Her it´s easier to compare the two portraits. The black and white must be the one that really represents the original. Much more details and shades in the background (treas, light from the sky, clouds) and in the faces of Pocahontas and her son. Then we have the detailed European style dress.

In the coloured one many seams and similar costume details have been transformed to completely different kinds of ornaments. Maybe the copyist wanted to try to make her look more exotic.

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